


Like Stealing

by KittyViolet



Category: New Mutants (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Coming In Pants, Coming Untouched, F/F, Hannukah, Presents, Rope Bondage, Shoplifting, Sleepiness, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:30:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21929761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyViolet/pseuds/KittyViolet
Summary: “What if we get in trouble,” I tell her, “because you stole my Hannukah present?”
Relationships: Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin
Kudos: 5





	Like Stealing

“Self-pity just tells you what to work on,” says Storm. “It tells you where you think you don’t measure up. And then you can decide whether to work on those qualities, or just go ask for a hug. Or both.” 

She shares those wise words—her words are always wise—while I’m stretched out on the warm tile floor in her aerie, grasping a few thick strands of warm fuzzy ginger-scented ivy, while she finishes her own red tea. I drank mine in two gulps and it burned my throat.

“It’s like my time’s not my own any more,” I tell Ororo. “Like now that I’m not a kid, now that I’m a real life superhero and stuff, I owe it to other people. And—I still want it for me. And I want time with... um, time with my friend. With my friends. But that feels like stealing.”

“I’ve said I’ll never steal again,” she tells me, watering an orchid and a fern in a hanging pot. The orchid only becomes visible when you water it; otherwise it just blends into the air. That’s why it’s called a cryptorchid, which is Greek for “hidden testicle.” It does not look like a testicle. It looks like a beautiful orchid. Blue and lavender: my favorite colors. Maybe someday I’ll design a costume with them.

“I’ll never steal again,” Ororo continues, “because I have what I need, and I know what I deserve. And that includes time and space for me and mine. And for my boyfriend. Or,” and she pauses, “girlfriend. I could have either. Or both. Like you.”

Now I really feel seen. How much else does Ororo know? Does she know about me and my best friend? I bet she does. But she’d never tell.

Lockheed flutters above me, chewing on a couple of leathery leaves, casting lavender shadows on my belly, on mosses, on the floor. I know what that potted plant he’s eating is. It comes from Shi’ar space. It makes him fart sparks. But he loves those leaves so much that I’m not going to stop him. Not that I can, since he’s three feet above me and I, by my own choice, am flat on Storm’s floor.

You know how you can know you’re having a good day, people love you, you’re acing the combat lessons and the C++ tutorials, and yet you can feel like you’re just not getting things right? That was my day yesterday. That was how I felt when I went to bed. Ororo, believe it or not, though she always exudes confidence, says she has had some of those too. 

And now she’s said what I needed her to say. Wait, she’s still talking. “Kittycat,” she tells me. “It’s when things are calm and good—when they are better than you ever thought they’d be—that you can find yourself unexpectedly sad. Because that’s when you can imagine them even better. And then you wonder if you can ever get there. But remember that you belong to you. And you will.” She pauses. “Asking other people for what you need isn’t stealing. It’s sharing. And it’s OK.”

I read about this one in history at my old school, or rather I read about it in these big Euro history tomes when everybody else in my class was still reading the history textbook: it’s called revolutions of rising expectations, and it means whole countries get discontented, not when they’re all in starvation and mortal peril, but when they think things are going to stop getting better, when they’re not stuck in the rut they had before.

Sunshine cuts throught the leaves, through Ororo’s dressing gown, through Lockheed’s wings, and falls on my face. 

It’s morning, which means I’m still in my nightgown, the new one Illyana brought home for me, the one we agreed to pretend that she stole, because shoplifting (at least from locally owned stores) is gross and wrong (unless you’re doing it for survival) but thinking about shoplifting is fun and normal and flirty and something girls do. 

Anyway I’m in my stolen-not-stolen nightie, because I ran upstairs with my blanket as soon as I realized that I woke up sad, and I’ve got my blanket over me even though it’s warm in the aerie, and I smile at Storm and tell her she gives good advice, because she always gives me good advice, and then I let myself phase back through the floor into the hallway and turn right to get to our room. I love the way the roof of our room makes an upside-down V. The roof of Storm’s aerie does too, but that’s the fourth floor. We live on the third.

Illyana was sleeping when I got up but she’s gone, and my sadness almost comes back but it doesn’t, because I know she’s downstairs fetching more tea.

She comes back upstairs with a big glass mug of tea for herself and a small cup of milky coffee for me and she comes very close to throwing the coffee at me, because she sees I’m still so sad and that’s how I am when I haven’t had coffee, but I take the small cup from her hands first and drain it in one gulp. Then I kiss her before she can suck down the rest of her tea.

“What if we get in trouble,” I tell her, “ because you stole my Hannukah present?” I’m combining three running jokes into one: “trouble” for normal girls, which never means trouble for us, and fake shoplifting, and the way that people who know I’m Jewish but don’t know much about being Jewish think Hannukah is the greatest time of the year. I do like presents, though.

“We’ll have to give it back,” she says, her bangs falling into her face. I love that look. “Better enjoy it while we can.” And she rubs her forearms, and then her cheek, against the sheer fabric. 

“Happy Solstice,” I tell my best friend, and phase my arm inside my mattress to bring out a box with bright-red wrapping. Illyana tears it up and open so fast I can’t even tell if she’s using her tail, or her teeth, or just those fast hands. She’s smiling. She lifts her new leather jacket out of its thin box.

“Shoplifted?” she asks. She knows the real answer. She takes it out and shakes her arms into the supple sleeves. “Mmmm. It fits.”

I smile. “Watch this.” I flick a control that’s still in the box and her jacket lights up along the shoulders, the wrists, the sides. I installed LEDs and wired the remote myself.

“You didn’t,” she says, and shuts out the light so it’s dark in our room even though it’s light outside. Then she strikes combat poses one after another in a way that leaves tracers in my eyes. It’s sleek and sexy. 

“Bet you can’t take this off me,” she says. I lunge at her and grab the sleeve of the jacket I gave her, which I did not actually steal, and phase the jacket off her while she stays solid, and I pass through her and fall on to her bed before I get solid again, and the minute I touch her black-and-white sheets something happens: they fold up around me and then dissolve into something transparent, like bubble wrap, and then get thinner until they’re a net. 

I’m caught in a net. “Happy Hannukah,” Illyana says. “I took your freedom of movement and I’m not giving it back!” She’s smiling. I’m smiling. I could phase out of this sack of twine at any time but I’m choosing to stay on her bed, all tied up like her very own present.

No, I couldn’t phase out of it. There’s magic involved.

“I’m sleepy,” she says. “That took work.” I’m entirely helpless until she unties it, or casts a spell to undo it, or unless I wriggle really hard and just try to get my fingers loose, which I could do in a true emergency but I don’t want to do anything like that. I like the feeling that I'm not in charge of anything: that I’m her parcel, for now. That she can steal me. That I don’t belong to me.

She really does seem sleepy. But I’m in a ball, my knees almost up to my chin—a comfortable ball, but a ball—on her bed. So she flops down on mine, without pulling the two together, and then stretches and yawns and peels back her black sleep shirt and her camisole and her sweat pants and closes her eyes and….oh. She’s pretending to sleep. She must be pretending to sleep, and she’s pretending to touch herself in her sleep, first one nipple and then the other, stretching catlike out on my bed so that I can see her toned belly, her sweat pants moving farther down her hips, her left hand slipping inside them, her lips staying slightly parted,. She rolls, first to one side and then to the other, and then…

I can’t touch myself. I can’t get out of her net. I can’t move. I’m just watching her, like a parcel she left behind, because she took some other merchandise instead.

I close my eyes and listen to her gasp, quietly, and open them. She’s smiling, and her hand is still down her pants.

Oh. She’s. Going. To.

I’m wet just watching, so wet that my thighs feel sticky under my nightie. It's a good thing I'm still wearing the cotton panties I slept in. I couldn't take them off it I tried. I’m just. Seeing. Her. As her mouth opens again and her eyes close and she knows I’m watching, she must know I’m watching, or did she really fall asleep? spellcasting can take a lot out of her, I know, especially when it’s a new spell—is this golden net a new spell?—she yawns, no, that’s not a yawn, she spreads her legs wide to fit her whole hand in between them, one hand inside her pants and one hand on top of them, between her legs, her back arches and her legs come slowly together, tensing up, tensing up, she’s saying words that aren’t really words, she’s—

I have Niagara Falls between my own legs at this point, I’m no longer glad I’m wearing panties because they are absolutely soaked, and as I shake and try to see what my best friend is doing I fall over sideways. Fortunately I’m still on the bed, but now I’m on my side, curled up in something close to fetal position as I watch Illyana come, and come, and come, on my bed. She shudders. I shudder. 

She has me right where she wants me.

She can do whatever she wants with me.

I'm such a mess. I'm all over myself. Just watching made me.... let me.... made me.... do this to myself. I'd feel ashamed of making such a mess-- because I'm not a kid anymore; because I might have to give back this nightie I stole-- except I know it isn't really stolen, and it's not really such a mess, and I've done exactly what my best friend wants and hopes I'll do. But it is a mess. I'm still... my legs are wet all the way to the knee, and I'm still on Illyana's bed, still on my side, still curled up. Like she wants me. 

“Untie me?” I ask when her eyes open and my eyes open. “But not yet.”

“Why would I do that, roomie?” she asks. “I’ve got you just right where I want you.” It’s where I want me too.

We nap a little bit, each on the other’s bed, me still in that golden net or harness or whatever my Hannukah present deserves to be called (can we just call it perfect, for now) and when I wake up I realize, first, that Ilya and I are both due in Salem Center in an hour (I’ve got a dance lesson, she’s tutoring kids in Russian), and second, that I left Lockheed in the aerie.

Then Lockheed, who must have flown downstairs on his own, starts banging on our closed bedroom door. I can tell it’s him from the light, repeated thuds: his head vs. our doorframe.

“Are you going to let me out so I can let him in?” I ask my best friend.

“Nope,” she says, and stands up to let him in herself.

He farts sparks in her face. I laugh. She laughs too.

The three of us walk downstairs, later, in time to make ourselves our favorite sandwiches. Lockheed likes British-style finger sandwiches for some reason, with cucumber slices. I want pastrami. Illyana takes whitefish on black bread. I watch her smile. I’ll bring her all the whitefish she wants. Lockheed and I will even go catch it ourselves, if that’s the only way.

It’s not until we’re out the door together, walking to the bus stop in winter sunshine, that I realize how, under my blue jeans and my green top with ribbons, I'm still wearing bits of that net. It’s like Illyana’s always got some way to tug me back if I go too far. Like if anything takes me away from her she can drag me back at least a little, Like she won’t let anything steal me from her for good.


End file.
